The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson Review

A lonely young American student living in England gets invited to her friend’s posh ancestral mansion in the country for Christmas. What could possibly go wrong - certainly not murder most foul?! Moo ha ha ha haaaa…. zzz…

Peter “Mid At Best/Mostly Overrated Crap” Swanson’s novella The Christmas Guest is, I think meant to be, his contribution to the Christmas ghost story subgenre except it’s barely either a ghost or Christmas story, and not even a halfway decent book at that too.

I mention some minor spoilers about the second half of the book so fair warning now. Plough on if you don’t care about spoilers or come back once you’ve experienced the boredom for yourself - either way I’m not recommending The Christmas Guest.

The first half of the book is the immensely tedious journal of the American student Ashley as she moronically squees her way through a Downton Abbey fantasia. She’s a dull girl who moons over her friend Emma’s dreaaaaammmmy brother Adam and nothing happens until near the end of the journal. It’s so boring to read so much banal setup.

Thankfully that’s the worst part of the book, but it only marginally improves following the mid-story twist as we find out Ashley is murdered by Emma, who then goes on to steal Ashley’s identity and has been living for the last 25 years in New York as Ashley. Why? Turns out Emma’s brother Adam is a murdering psychopath and to throw the police off his scent, Emma steps up to help out her twin by murdering Ashley in a similar fashion while Adam’s on a jolly in London, thus giving him a solid alibi.

The Gone Girl-esque twist is a cheap trick, especially as it’s derivative of that bestselling book, but it’s still effective - although that might be because the first half of the book is so thuddingly dreary that anything remotely interesting happening by that point feels extra-exciting by comparison.

Swanson doesn’t write Emma’s voice in a way that makes her feel like a sociopath so it’s not really convincing. And the momentary rise in interest is undercut by Emma recounting most of what we already know of the first half, so the narrative shortly lapses back into coma-inducing mundanity.

Ashley returns as a Bob Marley-esque ghost each Christmas, haunting Emma’s conscience, even though that wouldn’t really bother a sociopath as they don’t have those (this is also the one feeble attempt at making this a ghost story) and we find out what ol’ Adam’s been up to in the intervening years (more killing) and he gets his comeuppance, as does Emma, it’s implied.

Ashley’s ghost was unexpected given how little supernatural shenanigans had happened by that point, but it was a welcome surprise, and I’m glad Swanson gave us a resolution on Adam and Emma’s murderous ways to make for a more satisfying read, but the overall story is still of very unengaging and forgettable drek. A frozen turkey of a book, The Christmas Bore is definitely one guest you don’t want to invite over to your place at any time of the year.